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BALL x PIT (PC) by jp (Dec 21st, 2025 at 14:13:17) |
So, I finished it - and there's a new game +, but it is now starting to feel really grindy.
I'm a bit annoyed tbh, but I realize I'm being stupid here. So, there's a trophy for clearing all the levels for each character (1 trophy per character), and when I triggered the "true" end of the game (prior to whatever the true ending of new game + is), it reset the pit - and it takes a lot more clears to get the next level of the pit, which means that I sort of have to play the game all over again, grindier, just to get those trophies if I really want them. And I kind of do, and kind of don't, but I would if I could go back to the regular version - because then it's less of a grind and more like "mopping up".
I did unlock some crazy new ball evolutions that was fun! (according to the in-game encyclopedia, I've now done them all). I might play a bit more, but mostly for "mopping up" - there's some item evolutions I haven't figured out yet, but we'll see how much more patience I have.
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Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (PS4) by jp (Dec 21st, 2025 at 14:08:07) |
I've played about three hours at this point, probably in the middle of chapter 2 (I'll see if it's the middle or not because I've just landed in a new area - the valley of something-or-other).
I think that one of the things I've enjoyed most so far has to do with the fact that I played the first game a while ago and I don't remember much about the details, but that it's all slowly coming back, but as a sort of warm fuzzy memory. I need to check details, but the games are pretty different - the combat system here is active, not turn-based, but was the first game turn based? I don't recall, would have to check. But still, the general vibes and wonder of the world is still here in interesting ways. The colors, the art, etc. - BUT, you can tell that it is all now one step removed from the earlier Ghibli collaboration. The style is slightly different - not off, or bad - just different. You wander around an open-world area, avoiding monsters if you want to, picking up loot (shiny glinting sparkles to walk over), and meet interesting characters.
This time around there are "higgledies" - strange creatures that have some sort of elemental assocation, they're like spirits, but not really, they remind me of the Kodama (the little white creatures that rotated their heads) from Princess Mononoke, but also the fire sprite from Howl's Moving castle. They appear in combat and you can trigger them to help out. They can also (if you have the "right one") help with things in the environment - for now a buried clover leaf that, when activated, creates an updraft you can ride to a higher location.
It's all sweet, and nice, and interesting. So, I'll keep playing until it is no longer that.
The only thing that's surprised me negatively is that the camera distance seems weird. Some areas are thirdperson, but kind of close, and the camera moves really fast and I just seem to get a bit dizzy as I run to the next location (they're super linear, tbh). The overworld view seems really pulled back - I like being able to see the scope of the scenery (super cool), but sometimes wish I could bring the camera in closer? I think I might need to figure out if I should play a certain distance from the TV...
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Assassin's Creed Unity (PS4) by jp (Dec 20th, 2025 at 17:17:37) |
The weirdest thing happened when I booted this up to play last night.
There was already a saved game! In my name! About 7% through the game - so, not very long or very far, but I couldn't remember playing this at all! I thought perhaps a family member did? Nope they all said. The saved game was from 2019...so , not TOO old - as in, if it was me, surely I'd remember?
Oh well, no problem, I'll just start a new game.
You can't.
I couldn't find anywhere in the interface where you could start a new game, delete your saved file, nothing! I googled, and everyone was saying you had to turn offsyncing with Ubisoft's Origin - which won't work because I'm on PS4 AND, the saved file is in Sony's cloud saves... and I couldn't figure out how to delete a file from there either. You can only upload/download...which was really frustrating.
Oh well, let's just play one of the first missions - see how it goes..
And, it goes poorly - not gameplay-wjse it's just that the whole thing was pretty buggy - I saw characters doing weird things (floating in the air, etc.) but more importantly - significant mission triggers - didn't trigger! I continued, and eventually they worked out...so, I decided to just move on to the regular missions and just be ignorant of whatever story had happened...
So, I start an assassination mission - kill a guy inside Notre Dame - neat. It says there are different entryways, alternate missions you can do to make it easier and so on including a short scene with a priest who's locked out at the top and complains his keys have been stolen.
I wander around outside, getting the lay of the land, and notice there's a target - person with keys - so I steal the keys! Yay! Making progress - and then I realize I can pretty much climb up the walls of the cathedral, so I do.
And then I get to where the priest was complaining - and I use the keys to unlock one door. The other doesn't unlock - the priest just stands there - I go around unlock the door from the other side, and still no effect. Later on I die..so I start over, but this time my characters (Arno?) automatically unlocks a door and the priest goes like "thanks". Oh! But then, nothing else happens...and then some other part of the mission gets borked.
At that point I decide to bail, because this game is now old - I'm playing, I supposed, the version with all the patches and fixes...amd it's still THIS janky? Wow.
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Banner Saga Trilogy (PS4) by jp (Dec 6th, 2025 at 14:27:00) |
I started playing this back in October - maybe earlier? - and it was really confusing for me. Mostly I kept making mistakes I blame on the interface. For example, I'd select a character, move it, and then try to attack only to realize that I wasn't adjacent to the enemy like I thought. So, I'd miss a turn, my characters would die - but, I moved on. In the sense that I know this game is supposed to be sad, there's attrition, you make do an move on. But overall combat was really fiddly for me - I'd bungle selecting characters, and I wasn't really understanding the system.. does facing matter? are there attacks of opportunity if you move away, etc. These aren't dealbreakers for me, I was happy to try to learn and figure things out, and since you can't really save, it just continues - I though I'd just see how far I could get. Especially since it seems really brutal! I think the upgrade points are basically how you heal? Only two points at a time - so, it really is attritional. Or maybe I'm really misunderstanding the progression system.
I did think it was interesting to follow the different stories - I have a hard time following the names and whatnot, but just seeing there were two groups, different character abilities, and such seems interesting.
Then other stuff got in the way and I wasn't able to continue playing for a few weeks.
I just came back to it, and wow - still the same UI stuff and ugh. I just don't feel like it's worth it to continue playing (a drawer full of other PS4 games doesn't help). I wonder if the console version is just worse than sitting at a desk on a PC? As in, would I make as many mistakes if I was on mouse and keyboard with the screen much closer to my face?
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Kirby Super Star Ultra (DS) by jp (Dec 6th, 2025 at 12:20:24) |
There's quite a bit to do, but most of it has started to feel a bit shallow. The dungeon exploring was perhaps my favorite, there's lots of exploring to do which was fun, and it isn't that hard, and the companion helper was also a neat idea (to be honest though, I kept forgetting to "activate") - but overall I'm looking at the stack of DS games I still want to play (it's been getting quite a bit smaller, which is good -since the 3DS pile now looms) that I've decided to shelve this one.
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GameLog hopes to be a site where gamers such as yourself keep track of the games that
they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open,
you still consider yourself to be playing the game. If it's closed, you finished playing the game. (it doesn't matter
if you got bored, frustrated,etc.) You can also attach short comments to each of your games or even maintain a diary (with more detailed entries)
for that game. Call it a weblog of game playing activity if you will.
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2312 registered gamers and 3329 games. 7863 GameLogs with 13347 journal entries. 5121 games are currently being played.
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Final Fantasy VI Advance (GBA) by psettle |
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most recent entry: Sunday 13 January, 2008
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Summary:
Final Fantasy(FF)VI Advance is a role playing game from the FF series where you take command of a group of rebels trying to protect their world from an evil empire who is trying to use magic to control the world. Throughout the game, you control up to four characters as you level them up, defeating warriors and magical creatures, completing many tasks, until you ultimately defeat the evil empire.
Gameplay:
I have played a couple of FF games in the past, notably FFI&II: Dawn of Souls and FFX. Although I did get far on FFX, I stopped playing Dawn of Souls due to it was a real basic attack and magic system and very early in the game I got lost and couldn't figure out where to go. But this was not the case with FFVI. One thing I liked about VI was there was an emphasis on characters with unique secondary attacks. The main character, Terra, is the only one for a while who has the ability to use magic attacks to defeat her enemies, while her companion, Sabin, can use attacks known as "Blitz", where the player has to input a sequence of inputs from the control pad to perform a different blitz. This makes fighting the endless amounts of enemies and monsters much more fun and exciting.
The story was quite intriguing as well. I liked how I would meet the characters and get a small background of them, give them a name, and then discover their story as the game progressed. Another aspect of the story that I found very cool was that the world in which Terra and her allies live in is going through almost a "industrial revolution" if you might say, where you have machines capable of walking and destroying villages and people set within a very simplistic, mid evil world where the average warrior still fights with a sword and shield.
Another factor that made the game much more exciting was at a certain point in the game, your party splits and you must determine which scenario to deal with first. I know this has been done before in other games, but for me this is something quite new and exciting within the FF series. This broke up the monotony of having to follow a predetermined path of events, where now I have the decision of either sneaking around a village that was just captured by the enemy, or teaming up with a mysterious warrior only known as "Shadow" and taking on a enemy camp ready to attack another kingdom.
Thanks to this new secondary attack system and new scenarios within the game, FFVI is a wonderful game to play until you have gotten all the way through it. It's just a shame it took this many FF games to finally get it right.
Second Gamelog:
Gameplay:
During this interval, the game has kept up with the same elements that were mentioned before. New characters were introduced with new secondary attack systems. One of the characters depending on how long you would let his charge gauge go, would perform either a real basic attack if you only waited 1 second and a 4 person enemy KO attack if you waited for 4 seconds. I found this to be quite interesting and now the character is one of my primary party members. The game also took a turn for the worse.
In this FF game, you must take part in a tragic sequence of events where a enemy general doesn't wish harm on his enemies, just to capture them while a jester who is on the same side as the general wants to poison the kingdom they are trying to capture. Within this, you get to see how these characters have emotions and interact with each other. You'll have to play the game to see what happens, but I can tell you that it's pretty bad.
Design:
FFVI's design is just like that of any other FF game, except of a few changes to the levels and fighting system. As mentioned before, characters now come with a secondary attack system that is specifically unique to their character. One character can use magic, another can use tools such as crossbows, and another can perform attacks based on the player's input. There weren't many cutscenes, but whenever a long period of conversation, it usually was well planned as to reveal more information about a character and the story in general.
The levels were basically the same as the other FF games. As the others, you walk around on a large overworld map and would either enter towns and kingdoms or caves when you got close, or engage with enemies. One thing that made this not so bad was sometimes you battle formation would change when engaging an enemy. Usually when you enter a battle, your party lines up vertically on the right side and your enemies on the left. Now you can get a "back attack" where you line up on the opposite sides, affecting certain attacks such as Sabin's blitzes. Another formation is where you become surrounded, so only certain party members can attack certain enemies.
There isn't much I would change about the design of this game. Since they had 5 FF games before this, the game designers finally got it right. I haven't got to far but one thing I would like to see is more weapons I can give to my characters and more magic spells to Terra, the main character in the game. Another thing that made this a better design was that I have a large amount of money, so it's not like I can't afford new stuff for my party. Hopefully I can finish the game soon and find out what more awaits in the world of Final Fantasy.
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